Calgarians envision their communities 30 years into the future

Over the last few months, we've learned so much about Calgary neighbourhoods—what works and what could work better—as a result of the Project Calgary series.

My hope is that, a generation from now, Calgary will be a city of sustainable, walkable, livable, lovable, complete communities. When we speak with Calgarians about the kind of neighbourhoods that they want to live in, the answers are very similar. It doesn't matter whether they live in the inner-city or the suburbs or if they are young or old—people want to live in neighbourhoods where they can walk to the store, where kids can walk to school, where young families and seniors can both be comfortable, where that second or third car is really a choice for families and not an absolute necessity.

Neighbourhoods will have great recreational facilities nearby where people can play soccer or hockey without being up at the crack of dawn or driving all over the city. Arts and cultural activities will flourish, and people will know their neighbours, meeting in libraries and community centres.

Sound utopian? Maybe. But we have to try. Building neighbourhoods like this is the best way for our city to survive—for us to be socially, financially, and ecologically sustainable.

Focusing on the three Ds of great cities—density, diversity, and a sense of discovery—as we build new neighbourhoods and revitalize old ones gives us the roadmap we need to get to that better Calgary we're all dreaming of.

Shane Keating, Ward 12 Alderman

Calgary is on the cusp of enabling sustainable growth in newer styles of neighbourhood living. Population growth is estimated to surge 500,000 in the next 30 years creating a unique opportunity for resourceful planning.

Ward 12 may be some of the earliest examples of these complete living hubs where one can truly live, work and play. Where location of high density employment centers are being incorporated into traditional residential settings. The SE quadrant is one of the first to implement Transit Oriented Development in concert with Transit.

Complete lifestyle communities are exemplified with ingenious developments such as Quarry Park and Seaton. The integration of retail, mid –rise styled office /residential spaces, recreation and accommodation makes living in these areas ideal. This will also help ease one directional rush hours and allow for pockets of walk able communities.

Bev Sandalack, Professor and Urban Lab Research Director, Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary

“My hope for Calgary is that in 30 years, all neighbourhood will have a healthy urban forest, including tree-lined streets. William Pearce, Calgary’s first Parks Superintendent, envisioned a city of trees, and he devoted a lot of time and effort to develop the early boulevard plantings and parks that make the inner city neighbourhoods great places to walk. William Reader, another early Parks Superintendent, was also responsible for planting hundreds of trees, despite some difficult economic times during the early 1900s, a lack of water, harsh winters, and dessicating Chinook winds. Their visionary effort hasn’t been consistently carried forward since then, and unless we focus time, energy and money on a strong planting and replanting strategy, we may revert back to a prairie landscape. Calgary is much more livable with trees, and my hope is that the urban forest jumps ahead on the budget priorities.”

Leslie Evans, Executive Director, Federation of Calgary Communities:

“As Calgary becomes bigger, local neighbourhoods are more important. We are fortunate to live in a city where naming our neighbourhoods, and creating community associations, which is not always done in large cities, has already formed an identity and sense of community for many residents. As a native born Calgarian and advocate for communities, I believe that in 30 years neighbourhood life in Calgary will be even more vibrant and connected than it is today. I think that by 2042, due in part to higher fuel costs and intensification of our neighbourhoods, that Calgarians will have even more opportunities in their communities for work, shopping, learning, playing and socializing. We will enjoy more local amenities and public places, and will desire security and familiarity where we live. This will enhance neighbour interaction and connectedness improving neighbourhood life in Calgary.”

Julie Black, Citizen Engagement Associate for The Calgary Foundation

“In thirty years, we’ll be saying, ‘It takes a city to raise a child.’ We’ll have combined the close ties offered by village life - with the diversity and vibrancy of urban life.

We’ll have dared to implement our ideas for improving neighbourhood life.

We’ll see more ‘community connectors’ that we, at The Calgary Foundation, meet through our grassroots granting programs.

Community members who unite neighbours by building a community playground when they notice how many people are installing backyard equipment because there’s no safe place for children to play.

Citizens who create new bonds between the generations by inviting local schools and seniors’ residences to jointly build a community garden.

Neighbours who make connections by joining walking tours that explore the history of their community to gain a better understanding of planning and development issues in their area.

School councils who embrace diversity by inviting residents from the entire neighbourhood to attend multicultural celebrations that so that everyone knows that everyone belongs.

Active citizenship is the foundation for vital neighbourhoods. Do we really need to wait thirty years?”

George Brookman, former president of the Calgary Stampede and CEO of West Canadian Digital Imaging Inc.

“Having just had my sixty fifth birthday, it is a bit hard to imagine that I might still be around at ninety-five to see if anything I have to say here actually comes true. At the moment, I am calling myself a “junior Senior” but in thirty years, I am afraid that all pretence of “youth” will be gone. Time will tell.

Calgary is unique. Perhaps it is our British/American heritage, perhaps our awareness of how little control or consistency we have with our weather, perhaps it is the combination of forces that have merged the hard working, hand shake honesty and Western spirit that comes from our agricultural base with the entrepreneurial spirit of the energy industry. Whatever it may be, Calgary is unique and the personal energy and optimism of this City is something you can feel as soon as you arrive.

Thirty years from now, the children being born today will still carry that spirit. Calgary will still be a jewel in the Canadian financial landscape but it will have shrugged off its reputation as being a cultural wasteland and will be one of the centres of artistic excellence not only in Canada but around the world. The Alberta College of Art will have gained a world reputation at its new location while the National Music Centre will be attracting artists and performers from around the world. The Calgary Stampede will remain one of the great festivals of North America and will be drawing almost two million visitors a year. It will have expanded to include the Fort Calgary site and will be offering year ‘round Western experiences as well as facilities for animal welfare and husbandry.

There will be more people living in the downtown core and at night, in the summer, the Mall, the River Front will be lively and entertaining places. People will flock to a new live Theatre Centre in the East Village but A new high speed rail system will be nearing completion and will reach from Calgary to Edmonton to Ft. McMurray. Calgary will remain as Canada’s second greatest concentration of head offices and in order to accommodate those, there will be at least three more buildings as tall or taller than The Bow.

The Calgary Tower will still be there, but it will be at least two hundred feet higher than it is today.

The City will stretch farther in all directions but the main growth of the population will occur in existing neighbourhoods through increased density. Kensington/Hillhurst, Inglewood and Connaught/Mission will be the most sought after districts to live in. Inglewood will be gentrified with Ninth Avenue a boutique shopping area surrounded by wonderful new and old homes.

It will still be a City renowned for its hospitality and friendliness. It will be a City where newcomers bring their cultures from around the world, but also want to be part of the essence of what already exists. Most of all it will remain a place where you can raise a family, walk the streets, drive downtown and feel safe and secure. It will be a City that others emulate.”

Bill Partridge, executive vice president of the Building Owners and Managers Association

“There’s going to be a lot of redevelopment or resettlement of those inner-city neighbourhoods. And you might see in some of the buildings, in some of the houses which are now single-family, you might see internal subdivision. In other words, secondary suites.

“I think also some of the key infrastructure strategy is going to drive and define our neighbourhoods, where they are and what they look like. If we’re expanding LRT the way that we think, in 30 years, we could have these little satellite communities which are part of Calgary, almost like a town or a city within a city.”

Adam Legge, President & CEO of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce

“I think three factors will shape neighbourhood life in 30 years: price of fuel; technology; and moving away from privacy and over-protection. In 30 years it is likely that the price of traditional transportation fuels will be so high that people will look to live closer to work/school and will take different forms of transport. Our neighbourhoods will be more complete and offer more to do within the immediate area. Technology offers huge opportunity to bring virtualization, and web access along every step of the street. Imagine interactive community boards in parks, along sidewalks — it offers some very interesting experiences and opportunities to create and share. Finally, I think the public realm will open again. We will find a finite point of engaging in relationships in a digital space and will recognize that we are over-protective of our children. I hope we will find more people being neighbourly in neighbourhoods, more children riding their bikes, and having adventures. Our city is a safe one and the statistics prove it, so let’s start trusting that and living like it is a safe city.”

Carolyn Bowen, chairwoman of the ImagineCalgary steering committee

Calgary is a great place to live. I am raising my family in the inner-city in a neighbourhood that I love. But, I am also working hard with my neighbours to make it even better for the next generation.

My hope is that in 30 years, my neighbourhood will care even more. Care about the parks and green space and keeping our environment clean and healthy. We care about how we interact with each other. We care about our safety and those in need. We care about each other and we are connected to each other.

My hope is that we can walk to our local baker, butcher and grocery store for our meals and we can support the many businesses in our neighbourhood. But our ‘hood is also connected to the rest of the city. I want to ride my bike, be able to walk, or take transit or drive if I need to anywhere in the city.

I want my grandchildren to be able to fish, swim and canoe in the Bow River, one of our greatest resources in Calgary, just as we can today. ImagineCalgary is the collective vision that describes the city I would like to see today and the place I would like to live in the future.

I am constantly exploring my neighbourhood and wondering how has it evolved and how will it evolve. Just this past Sunday afternoon my wife, two friends and I went flaneuring and chatted about living in inner city communities. For me, living in Calgary hasn’t really hasn’t changed much in the past 30 years I have lived here. Fundamentally, people “live, work and played” the same way in 2012 as they did in 1982. While humans are obsessed by the idea of catastrophic change, in reality change is more glacial.

There will be seniors still living in the older homes as well as young families moving in and renovating homes as seniors move out (I will be one of those). There will be more multi-generational living i.e. grandchildren, children and grand parents living together – some of the new houses certainly are large enough. We will see more houses with elevators and lifts but will that really change the way we live.

I am thinking the average house size will remain the same or even get a little smaller, but there will be more bells and whistles. Cars will get smaller and trips shorter. We will still drive to the grocery store, mall and recreation centre. Parents will continue to madly chauffeur the kids to daycare, school and activities. We will continue to be a parks and recreation-focused culture. Walking and cycling for the vast majority of Calgarians will remain a recreational activity. Recycling and composting will be the norm. There may even be a return to the backyard vegetable garden.

The big issue for inner city communities over the next 30 years will be school site development (SSD). It will be the new hot button – think TOD (Transit Oriented Development) today. It will be interesting to see how we can creatively redevelop the school sites in the middle of our establish neighborhoods into mixed-used sites that can become the heart and soul of the community.

As the oils sands will not run out in 30 years, Calgary will still be a wealthy city. We will love our toys and will be early adopters of new technology. We will become an even more ethnically diverse community as Calgary becomes more attractive to international immigrants.

I believe we will become less downtown-centric and more a “quadrant city” – people will live, work and play primarily in one quadrant. In particular, the northeast will become the “airport city,” a mega distribution hub while the northwest will be branded as the “learning city,” with SAIT, University of Calgary and Foothills Hospital being its economic engine.

Downtown Core 2042

Downtown - depending on how you define it - may not change much over the next 30 years. The Downtown core will see some infill office towers (e.g. old Herald Building and Bay Parkade block, second tower at First Canadian Centre) and more +15 bridges to fill in the gaps. The Core shopping centre is good for another 30 years. Expect some upgrading of Stephen Avenue (e.g. Bank of Montreal building) and the south side of the 100 block of 7th Avenue. No doubt we will be debating the construction of a multi-billion dollar LRT tunnel under downtown and probably the expansion of the convention centre.

The biggest change will come along the 9th and 10th Avenue corridors. The surface parking lots will belong gone. Dare I say the CPR tracks will be covered over with office, residential and entertainment developments including a High Speed Trail station?

But for the most part the Downtown core will remain largely an office ghetto with people driving, transiting, walking and cycling into the core in the morning and exiting in the evening.

Downtown Periphery 2042

The big changes will come on the periphery of the Downtown core, especially on its east side. By 2042, East Village, Riverwalk, Bow Valley College, Central Library and National Music Centre will create a vibrant urban village for hipsters. Stampede Park will complement East Village, having evolved into a year round sports and entertainment district with a new arena and a mega face-lift.

The Beltline will continue to be Calgary’s densest neighbourhood with 35,000 people calling it home. They will be enjoying a vibrant the pedestrian street culture on 1st, 4th, 8th, 11th and 14th Streets as well as 10th, 11th, 12th and 17th Avenues.

The Eau Claire Promenade will become a mega gathering place for Calgarians with a revitalized Prince’s Island Place residential entertainment complex (formerly Eau Claire Market) being the hub. Literally, thousands of people will criss-cross the river with pedestrian bridges at East Village, Prince’s Island, Calatrava Crossing, Louise Bridge, 19th street and Crowchild Trail every day.

And while development of Mewata (West Village) will just be getting started, Sunalta will already have evolved into a trendy place to live. The old Science Centre with an iconic addition will have be transformed into the (insert future corporate or philanthropist name here) Contemporary Arts Centre.

NOBOW (North of the Bow River)

Perhaps the biggest change Calgarians will see will be on the north side of the Bow River (our Left Bank) which for some reason was left out of the 2007 City Center Plan. This area will have evolved from one of largely single family homes to one with boutique condos villages complete with bohemian street retail hubs in Bridgeland, along Edmonton Trail, Centre Street, 10th Street, Kensington Road and 19th Street. We might even see the first high-rise in NOBOW by then.

SAIT will evolve into one of North America’s most attractive inner city campuses creating a wonderful bohemian and bourgeois (bobo) community conspicuously different from the Beltline or East Village. NOBOW will continue to lay claim to being Calgary’s oldest and most authentic café culture. The Plaza Theatre will become a national historic building. It will be a true Jane Jacobs’ village populated by people of all ages and backgrounds.

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